THUMPER FORGE: When I was 12, I was reading a newspaper article about a coven of witches who had gone to see The Witches of Eastwick. And it was a very silly, cheesy little interview, but to my little 12-year-old mind, all I really saw was ‘Witches are real.’

I was reading this article, and my parents were in the room, and I said, ‘I'm going to be a witch,’ and they were like, ‘Mmm, maybe not. Maybe that's not quite the calling for you.’ But it was always — that stayed in the back of my mind.

HEATHER FREEMAN: This is Thumper Forge. It's his magical alias – not his real name. He was raised Episcopalian but became interested in mythology and magic from a young age. 

THUMPER: When I was in college, a freshman in college, I learned about Wicca. So, very secretively, I started collecting books, and I started reading as much as I could, trying to put together rituals, and trying to just kind of figure out how to make this work for me. 

HEATHER: Thumper learned about witchcraft on his own for years. He used early internet resources, like Yahoo groups to find other pagans and magical practitioners. 

THUMPER: And through those resources, I met Gardnerians who I, at that point, did not realize actually existed. I thought they were sort of mythological.

HEATHER: Thumper was eventually offered initiation into a Gardnerian coven. And today, he’s a priest of Gardnerian Wicca. Gardnerians are a branch of initiatory Wicca, a form of contemporary witchcraft. 

THUMPER: I was very nervous beforehand because I really had no idea what the initiation was going to entail. I don't like using the word ‘faith’ because I feel like that’s just sort of a loaded baggage-y word, but there was very much a leap of faith on my part. Because I live in Texas, I had been communicating with this coven of witches in California, and I ended up in Northern California in some random lady's living room getting initiated into the tradition.

I don't know, it's hard to describe how I felt immediately afterwards. It was a shift of "I'm getting to know these people and these people seem really great” to "I am now a part of this. I am now a part of this group."

I spent the rest of the weekend saying, "I'm Gardnerian," and just kind of sitting with that, and it felt like getting plugged into something in a way that couldn't be unplugged.

HEATHER: Later Thumper was also initiated into the Minoan brotherhood, which is another form of modern pagan witchcraft – specifically for gay and bisexual men.

THUMPER: In 2010, I had the opportunity to get initiated into the Minoan Brotherhood. And so that's always been sort of the complementary tradition to my Gardnerian practice.

HEATHER: Wicca came to the U.S. in the 1960s, and with its early emphasis on gender binary, most covens assumed participants were heterosexual. If there were queer initiates in a coven, they were expected to stay in the closet during ritual.

But thanks to New Yorker Eddie Buczynski there’s the Minoan Brotherhood. This form of witchcraft not only welcomes gay and bisexual men, but was created specifically for them. 

MICHAEL LLOYD: There's always been a gay thread in witchcraft and contemporary paganism. Those threads come together in Eddie's life. The spirituality, the religion, the gay activism — all were a part of who Eddie was.

MATTHEW SAWICKI: This was a gay man who was being true to himself, who was really saying, “No, my magic is valid. And the things that I do are just as important as what you do. And I'm not going to be discounted here.” 

HEATHER: Welcome back to season two of Magic in the United States. This is Episode 1: The Starry Minos. In this episode, we'll learn about the magical seeking of Eddie Buczynski, and how his exclusion from initiatory Wicca led him to form his own witchcraft traditions, including Eddie's best-known creation: The Minoan Brotherhood. 

We'll be right back. 

 (BREAK) 

HEATHER: This is Magic in the United States. I'm Heather Freeman. 

Eddie Buczynski grew up in the 1950s, about an hour outside of Manhattan in Ozone Park. He was a baby boomer, and his childhood was fairly ordinary.

But even as a little boy, Eddie didn't fit the standard mold. He was exceptionally creative, inquisitive, and — even as a child — very spiritual, making offerings to Greek and Egyptian gods in his childhood games. 

Eddie's life was chronicled in the 2012 biography Bull of Heaven: The Mythic Life of Eddie Buczynski and The Rise of the New York Pagan, and its author, Michael Lloyd takes up Eddie's tale.

MICHAEL LLOYD: He was very spiritually oriented. He used to tell this story of his father taking him to the museum in New York City and specifically to the Egyptian displays there. And he was always sort of goddess-oriented and his father, who was a Catholic, basically said, “You know, if you ever get into problems, consult the Mother.” And he meant Mother Mary, but Eddie took it more literally for a good part of his life, although he saw no contradiction in that either.

He actually thought about becoming a Jesuit priest. He transferred to Catholic high school and, unfortunately, he used to get the crap kicked out of him on a fairly regular basis because he was fairly obviously gay. He was quite a handsome young man and they treated him poorly, I think. And, as a result, he sort of detached himself from that idea of the priesthood. 

HEATHER: Eddie continued to struggle with bullying in high school. And he struggled to find a sense of satisfaction in his own life. But there was a ready solution, just an hour away from Ozone Park.

MICHAEL: After World War II in particular — when a lot of men from the countryside saw the world for the first time — decided they didn't want to go back to the plow, and all of those gay men knew they were different and were looking for something that called to their hearts and souls. And they ended up congregating in the big cities.

HEATHER: So in 1964 at the age of 17, Eddie moved to New York City.

He got plugged into the vibrant gay communities of Greenwich Village, and compared to his childhood of frustrated Catholicism and school beatings, things were looking up for him. 

But Eddie was still looking for knowledge of the mystical and divine. And New York was great for that too.

MICHAEL: Paganism and the occult have been in New York City for probably at least 150-200 years, through various influences. And so Eddie, you know, he began to make connections with a lot of these people. 

HEATHER: As Eddie got to know more and more magical practitioners in New York, he eventually moved in with his partner and fellow occultist Herman Slater. In 1972, they opened The Warlock Shop which sold magical supplies and offered classes on magic and esotericism for many years.

Around this time, Eddie read his first book about Gardnerian Wicca and he became a Seeker: a non-initiate pursuing the gods, magic, and mysteries through coven initiation. 

Before we go further with Eddie's story, we need to pause for just a minute and unpack the practice of Gardnerian Wicca, where it came from, and what it looked like in the United States during the 1960s and seventies.

Gardnerian Wicca can be traced back to a man named Gerald Brosseau Gardner. He was born in England on June 13th, 1884. He was frail and asthmatic as a child, so Gerald's upper-middle-class family sent him to the tropics with a nanny. 

When he was older, Gerald Gardner worked on rubber plantations and as a customs officer in what are now Sri Lanka, Borneo, and Malaysia. He was also an amateur anthropologist.

MATTHEW SAWICKI: He acquainted himself with Malaysian shamans and magical practicing people and was fascinated by all the things that they were doing for their own rituals, ceremonies, healings, and all that stuff and got in good with them, evidently. 

HEATHER: Matthew Sawicki is a third-degree Minoan brother and also a High Priest in New York Wicca. 

MATTHEW: He had some money, and then eventually he decided, he would retire and return home to England, and was able to live a little bit more leisurely life. And remembering that he was interested in magic, he realized, ‘Well, England has its own whole magical tradition, and I should really investigate that. Whatever happened to the old English wise women and the witches?’ and on and on.

And so he comes back to England and settles in the New Forest and starts to participate in a Rosicrucian theater there. 

HEATHER: This was the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, an esoteric group interested in mysticism and ritual. We don't know much about them. And what we do know is mostly from Gerald Gardner's own writing.

And Gardner wasn't always clear with the truth. In his books, myth, fact, and guile are all jumbled together.

MATTHEW: These people were what he believed to be the remnants of a remaining coven in England that was still operating in that day. And this was in the late 1930s. 

HEATHER: Gardner describes how this group recognized him as a fellow witch from a past life, and they initiated him into their coven. He later wrote that he was half-initiated before he heard the word ‘Wicca’. This was a new term, and the word struck him “like a thunderbolt.” 

Since then, many scholars have been skeptical about what, if anything, actually happened in that coven. There was certainly an intense bond of friendship and love between Gardner and several members of this group. But whatever took place left such a profound impression on him, that it changed the course of the rest of his life. 

Gardner and his new friends believed they were reincarnated witches who had known each other in a previous life. They honored two gods and their holidays were called Sabbats. The whole practice revolved around Romantic-era ideas of agricultural life and a connection to nature. 

The coven also practiced skyclad, a form of ritual nudity. Although this practice is often misunderstood and sensationalized, many witches today emphasize that being naked is a natural state of being. For them, being skyclad is a symbol of equality and liberation in rituals devoted to their gods of life and death.

The rituals Gardner and his friends practiced combined English folk magic, ceremonial magic, and their own original creations. They were secretive about their practices. But Gardner was in love with Wicca and wanted to sing it from the hilltops.

MATTHEW: He was so excited but also he wanted to tell the world. And they said, ‘Absolutely not.’ So he said, ‘Well, there's gotta be a way, I need to be able to let people know so that we can continue to, you know, find people who are interested. This can't die out.’ 

HEATHER: Coven members worried that Gardner would expose them to the public. They had respectable jobs. And nudist witchcraft? Maybe a little questionable in 1950s Great Britain. 

But Gardner didn’t let it go. And in 1951, he got lucky. England repealed the laws that criminalized witchcraft and Gardner used the opportunity for a media launch.

Here’s Thumper Forge again.

THUMPER: In the early fifties, Gardner published a book called Witchcraft Today, in which he announced to the world that he had made the acquaintance of a coven of witches and been initiated into their mysteries, and was kind of coming out publicly as a practicing witch. 

HEATHER: And he took what that coven had taught him and initiated other people into this tradition, most notably a woman named Doreen Valiente, who contributed a lot of her own original writings and poetry.

THUMPER: And that created this framework of something that was very much identified as witchcraft. So Gardnerians are witches who can trace their own initiatory lineage back to Gerald Gardner.

MATTHEW: He was charming. He was this old eccentric man with the shocking white hair and everyone was sort of fascinated with him. And he became this sort of media sensation. And he kind of relished it. He enjoyed the attention that it brought him. And he did bring a lot of new people into the fold saying, you know, ‘There are still witches out there and there are still people practicing this. And if you want to know more, contact me!’ 

HEATHER: Wicca spread rapidly, and arrived in the US in the early 1960s. But because it was a secretive, oath-bound tradition, the only information available came from Gardner himself.

Which brings us back to Eddie Buczynski.

Eddie read Witchcraft Today, in which Gerald Gardner described – in loose terms – the god and goddess of the Wicca. 

THUMPER: Within the Gardnerian tradition, we're venerating a specific god and goddess. A goddess who is associated with the moon and with magic, and a god who is very much associated with the earth and with death. And we celebrate that relationship and the relationship that we have with them. 

HEATHER: If anything, initiatory Wicca is defined by its secrecy.

THUMPER: Within the Gardnerian tradition, there's a lot of stuff that we don't share with people outside of the tradition, trust is paramount.

And the initiation really is that first experience of that trust. We are taking a leap of faith here, and we are going to trust that this person is going to uphold their oath, and is going to be part of this community, and is going to be able to contribute to this community.

HEATHER: But beyond these distinctions, most initiates are cautious to assert that their opinions are their own. 

Initiatory Wicca is largely said to be orthopraxic rather than orthodoxic. That is, you celebrate the Sabbat in honor of these gods and that's what's important. What you think about them as a polytheist, henotheistic, archetypalist, or even atheist – that’s strictly personal. 

Initiates today are also careful to assert that individual covens do perform the rituals with variation. Which makes sense — all religious and spiritual expressions evolve and shift over time, some very slowly and gradually, others quicker. And Wicca is no different. 

So roughly twenty years after its publication, Eddie Buczynski read Gardner's book Witchcraft Today, was inspired by the ideas, and wanted initiation into the mysteries of the Wicca. And he wasn't alone.

We'll be right back. 

(BREAK)

HEATHER: Welcome back to Magic in the United States. I'm Heather Freeman. 

From the Beat Generation of the 1950s to the counterculture movements of the 1960s, the U.S. was abuzz with sudden interest in religions, philosophies, and lifestyles that challenged the socially conservative mores and norms of earlier generations. 

It might've been the age of the Cold War, but it was also the Age of Aquarius, and modern pagan witchcraft – with its skyclad rituals and emphasis on the divine magical feminine – fit right in. 

But in 1960s New York, there were only a few Gardnerian initiates, and a lot of interest in contemporary witchcraft. It was also expensive and difficult to communicate from the United States to the United Kingdom, so early coven leaders were very concerned about passing on the ‘correct’ practices in the ‘correct’ way. 

But religious traditions that get too rigid in their boundaries start to fracture. And Eddie's hopes for initiation into Gardnerian Wicca ran headlong into a calcified wall. He couldn't get a Gardnerian coven to accept him: there were old-fashioned personality clashes; he was too far away'; or too young; or they didn't like Herman; or it was because he was gay. 

So his first initiation was into a coven run by a woman named Gwen Thompson. 

HEATHER: Eddie was charming, handsome, and an exceptional ritualist. So he excelled in the coven. Here’s Michael Lloyd again.

MICHAEL: Gwen Thompson had a Celtic tradition that she initiated Eddie into and Eddie practiced with her for a while and then they had a break. What I heard was that she was enamored with him and he was gay and that wasn't going to work and he ended up leaving. 

HEATHER: Eddie grieved the setback, but he got right back up. He took what he learned from Gwen and began to adapt it into his own tradition. 

MICHAEL: He took the stuff that he had learned from her and used it to form his Welsh tradition, Gwyddoniaid. It's Welsh. What he wanted was to form a tradition that would be more supportive of him. And, and that's what he did. He went out and did it.

HEATHER: Eddie ran his new Welsh tradition for several years out of The Warlock Shop. Meanwhile, his circle of magical friends and associates expanded, and he became acquainted with the Long Island Gardnerians.

His Welsh tradition grew so large it eventually split into two covens. But Eddie still wanted initiation into Gardnerian Wicca. So he approached the Long Island coven about joining them. Matthew Sawicki takes up the story.

MATTHEW: He wasn't really necessarily welcomed with open arms to the existing covens and you know, after asking, ‘Can I be initiated to the then-official Gardnerian Coven of the day,’ which was in Long Island, the answer at the end of the day was ‘No.’ 

HEATHER: Not to be thwarted, Eddie went to another branch of Gardnerian Wicca from Kentucky and was finally initiated by that line. But the Long Island Gardnerians still didn't accept his initiation. 

Stories vary about why, but most point to Eddie's relationship with Herman Slater, either because coven leaders didn't trust Slater, or because of Eddie and Herman's romantic relationship.

MICHAEL: So for a long time, Eddie wasn't considered a legitimate Gardenerian, even if he did have a vouch from someone who was clearly initiated. That's not to say that there aren't many gay men and lesbians in Gardnerian witchcraft today, and even back then there were quite a number. But you have to sort of stifle that part of you in Gardnerian Witchcraft. 

HEATHER: It's tempting to think that a religious practice that revolves around witchcraft might be more progressive than other religious practices. But the fact is, homophobia of the 1960s and seventies was found throughout American society — including in witchcraft traditions. 

And many religions have gendered roles. For example, in some branches of Christianity, only men can hold leadership positions. 

And gender was also important in Wicca during the 1960s and seventies. It was used to represent polarity, which is a nuanced concept that individual Wiccans don't always agree on. 

Thumper Forge and Matthew Sawicki again. 

THUMPER: Within traditional Wicca or Gardnerian Wicca, we venerate a god and a goddess. And those of us who are initiates are kind of their representatives. And I think about it in terms of, like, your best friends were getting married, and then they went off on their honeymoon and they decided to take the entire wedding party with them. That's what Gardnerian rituals feel like to me. They're very celebratory. They are honoring this divine couple.

HEATHER: At this time, an initiate was made a priest or priestess of the Wicca based on their assigned-at-birth sex. And there was a strong emphasis on this gendered balance within the circle. 

MATTHEW: And so one of the things that Eddie encountered in the 70s when the Gardnerians were trying to be traditional, male to female — when you circled together, you'd have to stand male, female, male, female, and it kind of kept this physical balance in the circle space — you know, they welcomed him and they said, ‘Okay, it's fine that you're gay, but you need to stand next to this woman over here just so everything's balanced.’

HEATHER: Eddie struggled within these ritual structures for several years. But he was a Seeker and always striving for something truer to himself. 

His friends described him as being a deeply magical being. He floated through The Warlock Shop, dripping with magical emanations, and did a mean Betty Davis impression. And his ritual music of choice? Carmina Burana. 

Eddie was passionate about witchcraft and magic. And the seemingly petty fights of other people wouldn't get in his way. He continued to experiment with several different traditions and created some of his own, including one that came to be known as New York Wicca. This practice was largely the same as Gardnerian Wicca, but working partners could be any gender identity or sexuality. 

And all this was happening in the 1970s, a time of profound change for gay and bisexual men in the United States. Michael Lloyd.

MICHAEL: It was a time when gay men were beginning to come into their power, they were beginning to try seriously to affect society, to seize the rights that they felt were due to them. And there was still a lot of oppression, an incredible amount of oppression. But back then, I mean, this was a new thing for gay men to stand up for their rights. Eddie believed that he needed to separate himself out and make it quite clear that this was our space, and we are going to do what we are going to do, to achieve our own goals and our own sanity. 

HEATHER: So rather than pushing against the walls of Wicca anymore, Eddie took what he had learned from those practices, and in 1977 he created something truly original.

MATTHEW: Eddie had already amassed a sizable amount of gay men who were coming to him, that were practicing Wicca. 

MICHAEL: He ended up doing a lot of research into early Greek religion, specifically Minoan and Mycenaean religion. 

MATTHEW: Eddie had started to formulate and compile his own tradition that he decided would be based on ancient Crete and called it the Minoan Tradition and specifically a tradition for men who loved men and wanted to work together and experience their own mysteries amongst themselves. 

MICHAEL: And he ended up forming The Minoan Brotherhood as a vehicle for attaining that goal.

HEATHER: In the Minoan brotherhood, Eddie adapted elements from the Gardnerian ritual structure and the solar Sabbats to what was popularly known about Minoan and Mycenaean ancient cultures. 

MATTHEW: So the sort of year cycle that Eddie worked with in the Minoan tradition was more of a sea-faring one. Crete is not one for farming. They do have olive groves and they do have their own wine and whatnot, but they were fishermen and they were on the waters a lot.

And so, for example, in the Minoan tradition, we celebrate the Feast of the Sky because it's the pure potential of the universe in the stars. Another example is August 1st. Well, we celebrate that as the Festival of the Sea and the Bounty of the Mother who is the ocean, and all that she brings forth and gives forth. And so we try to have our ritual on the beach, or at least by the water. 

HEATHER: Eddie used the structure of Gardnerian Wicca as a creative prompt, rather than a ritual restraint. And what he developed was truly unique from any other modern initiatory practice of that time. 

Michael Lloyd, Thumper Forge, and Matthew Sawicki are all initiates of the Minoan Tradition created by Eddie Buczynski. 

MICHAEL: The Minoan Tradition is an initiatory mystery tradition for gay and bi men that focuses on Minoan, Mycenaean gods and goddesses. They honor the great mother Rhea with her five faces, which I can't go into, and her consort Astereon, who is called the Starry One. He is the Bull of Heaven. It has some of the trappings that you would find common in other witchcraft traditions, and it also has spiritual practices that are designed specifically for gay and bi men. 

THUMPER: Within the gay community itself, there has always been very much a drive towards chosen family, we have friends who have become our families. And the Minoan Brotherhood gives us an opportunity to reconnect and recognize the gay men who have come before us, and to realize that we are carrying on their legacy as well. And so Eddie is very much perceived as our ancestor.

HEATHER: As the Brotherhood took off, Eddie maintained close relationships with the priestesses he'd worked with. And very soon, there was also a Minoan Sisterhood for lesbian and bisexual women. 

MATTHEW: Eddie's two main priestesses that he initiated, Carole Bulzone and Lady Rhea, they at the time were lovers. And the brotherhood was taking shape and Carole and Rhea said, ‘Hey, what about the ladies? What about the sisters?’ And he said, ‘Oh yeah, of course,’ he said, ‘Here's the Minoan Brotherhood book. I'm going to give it to you as a framework, but you guys have to fill in the rest because I really can't speak to those things.’ And Carole and Rhea worked together to create the Minoan Sisterhood and write their book and the Sisterhood still is alive and well today. 

HEATHER: The Minoan Brotherhood and Sisterhood continued to grow into the 1980s. Eddie hadn't just found a home in witchcraft. He’d created one. And it served an entire community. 

But a new threat emerged: HIV.  The AIDS epidemic would ravage the gay community and nearly wipe out a generation.

It almost crushed the Minoan Brotherhood, too.

MICHAEL: If you were a sexually active gay man in the 1980s, if you were doing what everyone else was doing, there was a good chance you were going to be infected, whether you were a Minoan or not. 

I mean, it was just something that came out of left field and mowed people down. And there was no rhyme or reason to it. It was just a disease. And it's just — we've lost millions due to AIDS.

So, don't blame people for disease. Blame the disease for the disease.

HEATHER: Eddie Buczynski was always a Seeker. And what he discovered, he shared with enormous generosity and enthusiasm, with everyone he knew. And the paradox of Seeking is that it never ends — even up until your last breath. 

MICHAEL: When he became so ill that he couldn't do any of that anymore, he actually sought out a local Catholic priest, a nun to help get him back into good graces with the Church before he passed away.

And I can't blame the man, he was in a great deal of pain. Plus, there's this whole aspect of the Mother Goddess and the Mother Mary and,the fact that his father had told him ‘If you were in stress to go back, you know, and talk to the Mother.’ And I think that's what he did.

Some people thought it was a betrayal. I don't think that. It's a journey, you know? It really is a journey — from cradle to grave. 

HEATHER: Eddie died of AIDS on March 16th, 1989 at the age of 42. The Minoan Tradition may be his most profound contribution to contemporary witchcraft and religion focusing on gay and lesbian communities. 

THUMPER: We lost a generation due to the AIDS crisis. 

HEATHER: Thumper Forge again.

THUMPER: And so we lost a lot of mentorship, and we lost a lot of wisdom, and we lost a lot of people who could teach the newer generations their own history. And witchcraft in general has always been the resort of the oppressed. It's where marginalized groups go in order to get the resources to fight back against their oppressors.

HEATHER: Despite the HIV aids crisis. Despite the loss of Eddie Buczynski. Despite laws impacting the LGBTQ+ communities that seem to go one step forwards and then two steps back, the Minoan Brotherhood and Sisterhood are alive and well today. 

MICHAEL: We still have a number of the original Minoans from that 1977 coven still alive today. And people started talking to one another more online. And some of the old people who had retired began coming back in and becoming more active.

HEATHER: The academic writings Eddie used to create the Minoan Brotherhood were old – from the 1920s. And they’ve mostly been refuted. But these early attempts to describe Minoan culture were the creative building blocks of Eddie's religious innovation. Today, a love for this inspired mythology, balanced with an interest in current historical research seems common, and the brotherhood is thriving.

MATTHEW: The brotherhood has reemerged, with a whole new generation, and a whole lot of interested young men who are really wanting to, not only explore this, but empower themselves with what this tradition has to offer.

We've even gotten to Europe, we're in Ireland, we're in France, we're in Brazil, it's kind of amazing. And I'm sure Eddie is blown away, on the other side, realizing how far his ideas have gone in all these years when so many people told him ‘No.’

HEATHER: In recent years, initiatory witchcraft traditions that have historically defined themselves around gender roles, have started asking themselves about their inclusivity of trans, non-binary, and gender-fluid individuals.

THUMPER: But, for me, it's gender in the way language is gendered. Where certain words are masculine and feminine, but that doesn't necessarily say anything about the word itself. There's Priests, and the Priestesses, and the High Priest and the High Priestess — a term that has started growing in popularity is PriestX, the idea of a gender-neutral priesthood role.

I just feel like, especially as our understanding in society in general of gender becomes more nuanced, even if the roles within a Gardnerian ritual themselves don't change, I think we have the understanding to realize that who can play those roles is not set in stone.

HEATHER: Next week on Magic in the United States, we'll learn about Lukumi and the 1980s Supreme Court case that embroiled a suburban Miami community and riveted the nation. 

Would you like to leave us a comment or a thought on one of our episodes? Give us a ring. 980-277-4402, or leave a message or voicemail at magicintheunitedstates@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!

Magic in the United States is written and hosted by me, Heather Freeman. The show is produced by Amber Walker and edited by Lucy Perkins Our Associate Producer is Noor Gill, and the show is mixed by Jennie Cataldo. Fact-checking by Dania Suleman. The Executive Producer for PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. The show’s music is from APM Music and Epidemic Sound,  and our project managers are Edwin Ochoa and Morgan Church. Thanks to advisers Helen Berger, Chaz Clifton, and Thorn Mooney. Thanks to guests Thumper Forge, Michael Lloyd, and Matthew Sawicki. Additional thanks to Carole Bulzone and Lady Rhea. This production was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  

Wherever you are in the United States, the East, the West, the North, or the South: remember, that magic is everywhere.

I'm Heather Freeman. And I'll see you at the crossroads.